Are these early April fools jokes?

[GGroch]

I had not heard of Peter til this thread but my 1st impression is not silly...but genius**. An enthusiastic embrace of confirmation bias, at popular prices.

We know high end AC cords make no actual performance difference in audio gear, but we also know that the majority of people who buy them hear a major improvement. Why go to all of the trouble and expense of buying high end cables if you can get the exact same improvement from a $10 sticker or $15 of odorless balm. You just have to believe. Brilliant!

** Not forgetting of course

 

[sergeauckland]

Was it Belt who suggested putting an aluminum foil wrapped picture of the listener (or listening room) in the freezer before a serious session?

If it wasn't, it should have been. Exactly the sort of daft as a brush stuff he did suggest.
Considering that lots of his suggestions didn't involve buying anything, I could never make up my mind if he was serious, seriously misguided, or having a colossal laugh at the gullibility of hifi enthusiasts.

S

 

[Thomas savage]

I have that CD some place as well as a densen demagic ..... .... .. .

 

[Speedskater]

May Belt (Mrs. Peter) once wrote in the Stereophile forum, that their products had no impact on the electrical audio signal or the acoustics in the room. The products affected the listener and what they heard. So far so good, but then she continued that the products worked whether the listener knew about them or not.

 

[Hypnotoad]

How about a pair of $70,000.00 speaker cables?

 

[RayDunzl]

How about a pair of $70,000.00 speaker cables?

I think I was there...

I don"t remember any music.

People milling about, somebody setting up to make a video, some suits talking to each other trying to outdo the others importance...

 

[invaderzim]

 

[JJB70]

I am with others, Peter Belt's ideas were bonkers but at least he wasn't charging obscene sums fleecing the gullible to sell his snake oil. If you want to play tricks with your mind to convince yourself you perceive an improvement in sound quality then you may as well do it cheaply. And his ideas were so bonkers as to be good fun. I actually have more time for his type than those fleecing the gullible at Nordost, PS and Audioquest or their shill reviewers.

 

[GGroch]

RE: it puts the lotion on the pre-amp.

Speaking from experience, miniature poodles are excellent bass traps! Helpful hint, adopt old dogs. They bark less and it is much easier to maintain their positions in the optimum locations.

 

[invaderzim]

I am with others, Peter Belt's ideas were bonkers but at least he wasn't charging obscene sums fleecing the gullible to sell his snake oil. If you want to play tricks with your mind to convince yourself you perceive an improvement in sound quality then you may as well do it cheaply. And his ideas were so bonkers as to be good fun. I actually have more time for his type than those fleecing the gullible at Nordost, PS and Audioquest or their shill reviewers.

I see your point but to me these are gateway drugs to start people down the imaginary improvement path. While absurd to the point of being funny to us; when 'reviewers' put in print that "anyone with $40 and a sense of whimsy should try this" they are begging a new set of readers to join them in their insanity. The write-ups actually said in multiple places to basically "stop thinking and buy this". And that journey leads to things like buying multiples of "a "scalar field generator" that's supposed to emit an energy wave, the beat of which is calculated to react in specific ways with stray electromagnetic radiation. " for $2700 each.

While some read these endorsements and decide that they can no longer take anything from a source that would print it seriously there are those that try the stupid cheap stuff and decide it works and from then on take everything that person or magazine says as fact.

I do completely agree though that the companies that you listed are far worse because they sell both the introductory level imagined improvements along with multiple higher levels of imagined improvement to keep taking people's money.

 

[NTomokawa]

Why hasn't anyone come up with "audiophile" ear drops yet?

A red bottle for classical music, a blue bottle for blues, a yellow bottle for rock...

That's a gold mine right there!
/s just in case

 

[GGroch]

I see your point but to me these are gateway drugs to start people down the imaginary improvement path.........when 'reviewers' put in print that "anyone with $40 and a sense of whimsy should try this" they are begging a new set of readers to join them in their insanity...

OK, but the inverse conclusion may be just as likely. When a reviewer advocates a drop of lotion or a bookmark placed on a particular page as an audio enhancement it would cause many to question the judgment and motivation of the reviewers. Increased skepticism is a good thing.

Alternately, if people do experience improvement from an absurd illogical tweak, it could lead them to question why they heard a difference, and perhaps into an understanding of how audio confirmation bias works. Subjectivists often see any questioning of what they experience & hear as a personal affront, rather than the result of how all human brains work.

Nothing is as effective as satire & ridicule in putting pompous posers in their place. Perhaps Peter believed everything he said, perhaps it was a long troll, but either way it might have had positive results.

 

[invaderzim]

... it could lead them to question why they heard a difference, and perhaps into an understanding of how audio confirmation bias works. ...

I guess there are likely a lot of people smarter than me that will learn faster.

On a side note, anybody want to buy a Noise Harvester?

 

[BluesDaddy]

Also in that obituary (my bold), Art Dudley says that they "steadfastly maintained that the products .......................................have less to do with mysticism than with shifting the emphasis from altering the performance of playback gear to altering the perception of the listener" and that "It has always been perception." I've always regarded them as silly and less pernicious than many.

Isn't this really admitting that it's all confirmation bias? Convince yourself of the efficaciousness of a product and the product works. What I don't understand is why not just invest in some good bourbon, or get stoned before a listening session. I mean, it's just beer goggles, right?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Isn't this really admitting that it's all confirmation bias? Convince yourself of the efficaciousness of a product and the product works. What I don't understand is why not just invest in some good bourbon, or get stoned before a listening session. I mean, it's just beer goggles, right?

Sure.

 

[Guermantes]

Isn't this really admitting that it's all confirmation bias? Convince yourself of the efficaciousness of a product and the product works. What I don't understand is why not just invest in some good bourbon, or get stoned before a listening session. I mean, it's just beer goggles, right?

It's common knowledge that a nice bottle of red always improves one's creativity:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ustralian-study-mathias-benedek-a7883826.html

Subjectivity can't be underestimated in listening to or creating music. After all, it is about enjoyment (or should that be entrainment), isn't it? I'm tolerant of bargain-bin psychological enhancements such as Peter Belt's or the bottle of wine, as they actually may have some efficacy. The sad aspect, for rationalists like us, is that it is probably only the true believers that will gain the most benefit.

A couple of anecdotes from me:

As a child, I had chronic warts around all my fingernails for a few years. They hurt and often bled because I picked obsessively at them. We went to doctors, applied creams and caustic solutions but to no avail. One day my mother said she had heard of an African folk remedy (her description): She would buy my warts from me and, since they were no longer mine, they would disappear. She gave me a 5 cent coin and cautioned me not to spend it, so I put it away. Within a few weeks all my warts were gone. I must have eventually spent that 5 cents but the warts never came back.

I come from a long line of stage magicians. Most of my magical ancestors were also inventors and engineers, pioneering things such as pay toilets and early wireless telegraphy. The first one to take up prestidigitation was a watchmaker who saw through the "supernatural" tricks of spiritualists and claimed he could replicate them without help from the spirit world. He was so successful at this that the famed biologist Alfred Russell Wallace said that it could only be explained by the use of supernatural powers!

Sometimes we just want to believe in magic . . .